Better know your Blue Jays 40-man: Matt Dermody

Matt Dermody. The question to the Jeopardy answer “The player that Tom is most likely to forget on the Blue Jays 40-man?”

He’s also a ‘big and strong’ lefty. 6’5”, listed at 195 (so maybe he ain’t so big, he’s just tall that’s all) (one of those references only the older ones will get). He’s 27 now, if he’s going to make any major league money, it’s going to have to be soon.

FanGraphs shows him as basically a two-pitch pitcher, throwing a 92.1 mph fastball (on average) and an 85.3 mph slider, with a changeup he throws once every hundred pitches or so.

After a 2016, where he had his first taste of the majors and where he pitched in the AFL, Matt had 4 trips up to Toronto from Buffalo in 2017, but when he came up in mid-August he stayed. In total, he pitched in 23 MLB games, had a 4.43 ERA in 22.1 innings. He allowed 23 hits, 6 homers, 5 walks and 15 strikeouts. Batters hit .264/.316/.506 against him.

Matt had a huge left/right split. Lefties hit .195/.227/.244. Right-handers .326/.392/.739, with all 6 homers coming off right-handed bats. The trouble is that even a LOOGY will see a lot of RHB, so he’s going to have to learn to get them out.

In Buffalo, he pitched in 33 games and had a 3.56 ERA. In 43 innings, he allowed 48 hits 6 home runs, 11 walks with 39 strikeouts.

I keep discounting his changes to get the second lefty job out of spring training (or maybe third lefty if you count Barnes). I think that if Tim Mayza has a good spring, the job is his, but if Matt is the one having the good spring, he could go north with the team.

We used his first option year, last year, I’d imagine he’ll be making the trip back and forth to Buffalo, several times, again this year.